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  “Go ahead and open it. I’ll go make more coffee if you want some privacy.”

  “Go—stay—I don’t care what you do. It’s nothing, anyway. Nothing important.”

  Leaning forward, Rafe pulled a copy of the local newspaper, the Coastland Times, from the stack on the floor, and pretended to read. Ocracoke’s single page was inside. School menus. Board of fisheries report. A poem by a local high school senior. Not a whole lot to engage his attention. He wondered if there was a newsstand on the island that sold the Wall Street Journal or even USA Today.

  He watched as Molly worked the envelope open incrementally. She was frowning, chewing on her lower lip. Whatever it was—threats from a creditor, a ransom note?—it could hardly be all that bad. She wasn’t the type of woman to get mixed up in anything too shady.

  Or was she? What did he really know about her? She claimed to know Stu, claimed to be Annamarie’s sister, but hell, she could just as easily have claimed to be a reincarnation of Mary, Queen of Scots. He had no proof either way. The first time he’d ever seen her she’d been with some guy who hadn’t even bothered to see her to the door. Come to think of it, she’d looked upset at the time, even by the single yard light. And that was before she’d even discovered the stranger in her kitchen.

  So she knew how to look after the birds. No big deal. Lots of people knew how to take care of birds, although why anyone would want to be around this particular pair escaped him. The cat liked her, but cats could be bought with a treat and a good ear-scratching. Not that he had any personal knowledge when it came to pets. Until a rebellious kid brother had been dumped in his lap, the only dependents he’d allowed himself were a goldfish and a houseplant. When the plant had turned yellow and died, he’d given the fish to the kid next door. Working on a degree and holding down a job as night watchman at a medical supply house, he’d been too busy for further involvement.

  That had been just one of several lean periods in his life. Stella had forgotten to transfer the child-care payments when she’d left Stu on his doorstep, so to speak. Meeting his half brother for the first time had left him too rattled to even think about how he was going to manage financially.

  The wind-driven rain attacked another side of the house, which meant the wind had shifted. Which meant the nor’easter might finally be moving offshore. Which meant that with any luck, he could be out of here by tomorrow.

  Oddly enough, the thought wasn’t particularly appealing.

  Without even looking at her, he knew Molly had opened her letter. Whoever it was from, whatever it was about, was no concern of his, he reminded himself. But hearing a soft, shuddering sigh, he relented. “If you want to talk about it, I’ve got broad shoulders and big ears.”

  She looked up, as if just realizing she wasn’t alone, and choked off a laugh. “You have nice ears—not too big, not too small. But no thanks.” Her smile cut through a few more layers of the defenses he’d built up over the years without even being aware of it.

  “Your call. Look, instead of more coffee, why don’t I make us a couple of turkey sandwiches? The sooner we get that carcass out of the way, the sooner we can start over.”

  Molly said, “Fine.” He had an idea she would have agreed to just about anything at that point. Which made him all the more curious.

  In the kitchen he laid out the ingredients and stepped back to survey the possibilities. Turkey, mayo, horseradish, olives, provolone, lettuce—it was only iceberg, but it would do in a pinch. The bread was whole wheat, thin sliced. He would have preferred croissants, but he could compromise. One of the first lessons he’d learned after being left more or less on his own after Stella had dumped his old man and hooked up with her next prospect, was how and when to compromise.

  Bread was easy. He set to work slicing and spreading, and pondered adding butter along with the mayo. He decided against it. The lady had a few pounds she’d like to lose, although she looked fine just the way she was. Better than fine, actually.

  Which just went to show that he had a few problems of his own. Despite the fact that he had a full social life on tap whenever he was in the mood for companionship, lately he’d been growing restless. Nothing he could put his finger on, just a feeling that life was moving too fast and he just might be missing out on something important.

  He was imagining things. The weather had him pinned down. He was stuck in a four-room cottage with a sexy woman and it was screwing up his mind.

  Sexy? Molly Dewhurst?

  No way. She was simply a nice, wholesome woman with a pretty face, a disarming sense of humor and a ripe, lush body that any normal male would find…interesting.

  He stacked thin slices of turkey breast onto bread slathered with mayo, added a touch of horseradish and then artistically arranged the other ingredients. “Work of art,” he muttered smugly.

  “Did you say something?” Molly called out from the next room.

  Glancing around the door into the living room, he saw that she was staring out the window, the letter still in her hands. “I said, work of art. Constructing sandwiches.” He topped off the leftover coffee with milk, poured it over ice and carried the tray into the living room. “Later on I’ll make us a special dessert instead of dinner, and we can have an early night.”

  What other kind was there when there was nothing to do? The local pubs weren’t worth the effort on a night like this, with the wind blowing a full gale and the roads flooded. If things didn’t break by tomorrow, he might have to settle for one of Stu’s history books, or something called Early English Survivals on Hatteras Island. One of Annamarie’s thrillers, no doubt. He’d given it a quick glance, thinking it might be about shipwrecks, but it had to do with exploring remnants of Elizabethan English phraseology along the Outer Banks.

  He’d settle for exploring Molly. If he grew tired of that, he would throw together something scrumptious in the kitchen that would tempt her right down to her pretty pink toenails and entertain himself by watching her try to resist.

  No, he wouldn’t. She didn’t need the hassle, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow…

  Carefully she refolded the letter and laid the envelope aside. Silently they ate. Rafe couldn’t help but notice the way she enjoyed his creation, closing her eyes and sighing. He wished he’d added butter along with the couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise. There was something amazingly sensuous about a woman who truly enjoyed her food.

  Later they talked about politics, and somewhat to his surprise, she was well-informed and not at all timid about voicing her opinions. After a spirited discussion of the pros and cons of voter referenda, he made fresh coffee and they switched to sports. Molly loved baseball. He was a football fan. He occasionally played golf. She occasionally watched stock-car races, explaining that the sport had gotten its start with bootleggers trying to outrun revenuers. “One of my great-uncles once operated the biggest still in Grover’s Hollow. They say people used to come from all around to buy his whiskey, but he died when revenuers were chasing him up a mountain road and he lost control of his car and went over the side. The strange thing is, it was less than a mile from where my parents ran off the same road and were killed.”

  How the hell was a guy supposed to react to something like that? Sympathy? Admiration? He opted for changing the subject. “What about fishing? Ever done much of that?”

  She shook her head, causing her hair to slither free of its confinement. “It was never a real big thing in Grover’s Hollow. Maybe if I’d had brothers instead of sisters, I might have tried it.”

  “But then, if you’d had brothers instead of sisters, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  She laughed for the first time since she’d sorted through the mail and found the letter that was bothering her. He’d just as soon keep her mind off whatever problem had followed her here, because a relaxed Molly Dewhurst was surprisingly good company. Relaxed, interesting and attractive enough in her own unique way to add the zest of sexual awareness.

  A little too much
zest. “Tell me about the rest of your family, Molly.”

  “I’ve already told you everything there is, even about Great-Uncle Oliver, the bootlegger.”

  “You left out the part about changing your name to Dewhurst. Stu’s wife was a Stevens before she married, wasn’t she?”

  She picked up a crumb with her thumb and licked it off. “Oh, for mercy’s sake, I’ve done all the talking. It’s your turn now. Your life is bound to be more interesting than mine.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Your suntan, for one thing. And you fly a plane. And you’re a marvelous cook. Most men can’t even operate a can opener without cutting their fingers and having to be waited on hand and foot for a week.”

  Bingo. Another clue. They were beginning to pile up. For a woman who chattered when she was uncomfortable, she didn’t impart a whole lot of personal information. And the more she left unsaid, the more she fascinated him.

  Maybe fascinated was too strong a term. Mildly interested was a better one.

  Oh, yeah. Nothing like a mildly interested libido.

  Sometime in the night he heard a sharp sound, a thump and a soft, muttered curse. He’d been lying awake, wondering what the devil he was doing here when he could be looking over property along the lower mid-Atlantic coast. The southbound Cedar Island ferry was still running. He’d rented the rust bucket for a week.

  “You okay?” he called out softly. He was pretty sure the sound had originated from inside the house, not outside.

  “I’m fine. Go back to sleep,” she growled.

  The rain had stopped, but the wind was howling harder than ever, whistling under the eaves, twisting the branches of ancient live oak trees to scrape against the house. He rolled out of bed and reached for his jeans. Sand gritting under his bare feet, he made his way to the small bathroom that had obviously been added on after the house was built, probably in the late forties. The door hung open. The only way to keep it closed was to hook it. Molly was on her hands and knees peering under the claw-footed bathtub.

  Rafe sucked his breath, his hands moving instinctively to echo the sweet curve of her derriere. “Lost a contact?”

  “I dropped a bottle of tea tree oil.”

  “Tell me what it looks like and I’ll help you find it.”

  “It looks like a bottle of tea tree oil,” she snapped, reminding him that some women weren’t at their best in the middle of the night.

  On the other hand, some were.

  Molly was obviously of the former persuasion.

  “This it?” He raked a small brown bottle from behind the wastebasket and bent over to pick it up. There was a sealed adhesive bandage on the floor, as well. “What are we doing? Performing a little midnight surgery?” She had rolled over onto her behind and was glaring up at him.

  Molly on her feet in broad daylight was one thing. Molly on her rump in the middle of the floor at midnight, with one sock on and one sock off, was something else.

  “Need some help?”

  She said no first, then yes. “My blasted arms are too short! I can’t twist far enough around to reach the back of my heel with both hands, and I’ve already ruined three bandages trying to stick them on one-handed.” She looked embarrassed, angry and so damned sweet, he was tempted to offer to kiss her foot and make it well, and then explore any other possible injuries.

  But he didn’t. There was something about the woman that affected him in a way he had never been affected before. He didn’t know quite how to deal with it, but he had a feeling it was nothing to mess around with. Having shared the water with tiger sharks, barracuda and moray eels, he had quickly learned that looks could be deceiving.

  She leaned back on her elbows and lifted her bare foot. About a size-five lady’s, he figured. Medium. He’d done a stint in a mall shoe store the summer of his freshman year in college.

  “You want some of this stuff on it first?” He indicated the small brown bottle.

  “Please,” she said through clenched jaws. “Just a tad. If you get too much on, the bandage won’t stick. That was part of my problem.”

  “It’s going to burn. You’ve got a big one here, with the top torn half off. Want a little surgery while I’m at it?”

  “Just dab on the oil and cover it with a bandage, never mind the flap. It’ll either grow back or fall off.”

  Holding her ankle in one hand, he anointed the blistered heel, smoothed on the bandage and tried not to stare at the length of rounded female leg on the other end. He was breathing through his mouth, somewhat more rapidly than usual by the time he set her foot gently back on the floor. When she started to get up, he offered her a hand.

  “Go back to bed,” she said in that oddly husky voice of hers. “You’ve done your good deed for the day. And thank you, Rafe. I could have managed, but this was quicker.”

  Maybe it was the intoxicating effects of the astringent oil, combined with something sweet and powdery that smelled like sea grape, but he refused to leave her there on the floor. Sheer stubbornness on his part, knowing she wanted him to leave so she could get up with no great loss of dignity. Some women, the long-stemmed ones, could manage to rise in one flowing, balletic movement. Molly was built along sturdier lines, her ballast arranged slightly differently. He found himself wanting to lift her up and hold her until she was steady on her feet, and then carry her back to bed.

  His or hers?

  Damned if he knew. What he did know was that he’d better think about moving on, weather or no weather. He could always come back for the Baron, or send someone else for it. If he missed Stu he would catch him later, after Sister Molly had gone back to wherever she did her head-housekeeping.

  Funny woman, he concluded. Nice woman. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d spent this much time in close contact with any woman, even Belle, and felt so comfortable.

  Only, comfort wasn’t exactly what he was feeling at the moment, which was why he cut it short and told her good-night.

  Rafe had high hopes of getting off the island, but the wind was still howling the next morning when he pulled on his jeans and closed his bedroom window. He had anchored various stacks of paper with giant quahog shells, or else they’d have been scattered all over the room.

  Molly was already up. She’d been on the phone. Her expression was puzzling, to say the least. “Problem?” he asked, reaching for the coffeemaker.

  She shook her head too quickly. He thought about pressing her, but decided to ease up. Odds were better than even that he’d be able to leave by midafternoon. He’d just as soon not get involved in anything that might mess up his exit.

  Once he’d packed his gear, he set about putting the office back in the condition he’d found it. The cot had held stacks of books, notes, audiotapes and a professional looking recorder. Molly had stacked them neatly in the corner when she’d made up the cot. He pondered whether or not to pile them back on the cot and decided against it, in case he needed to stay another day.

  The truth was, he could probably have flown out by now, but given the condition of the roads he’d felt compelled to hang around until the water went down enough for Molly to be able to drive. If she decided to go sightseeing and ended up driving off into Silver Lake, he didn’t want it on his conscience,

  By midmorning the heavy clouds had blown offshore. The teenager next door waded across the yard to drape several small crocheted rugs over the picket fence. Seeing Rafe, she grinned and shrugged. He lifted a hand in greeting. Knee-high boots and navel rings? Cute kid, but he was just as happy not to have another teenager to raise.

  The phone rang an hour later, just as they were sitting down to cheese-and-salsa sandwiches. As Molly seemed reluctant to answer it, Rafe grabbed it on the fifth ring. “Rafe? What the dickens are you doing there? Did I dial your number by mistake?”

  “Stu? Hell, no, boy. I came to help you celebrate your birthday.” Rafe filled him in on how he’d flown in with the makings of a surprise dinner and gotten trapped by one of
the notorious low-pressure storms.

  “Yeah, the birds are fine,” he said in answer to the next series of questions. “Cat, too. Molly? Blistered heel from wearing your boots for a beach walk, but other than that—yeah, I thought maybe later today. Tomorrow for sure.” There was a long pause, during which Rafe listened to a recital of recently unearthed historical data and the bliss of being married to the world’s most wonderful woman.

  Molly listened to the one-sided conversation, trying to decipher Rafe’s few remarks. Later today what? Tomorrow for sure what?

  He was leaving. The news was surprisingly unwelcome. After only a few days of sharing a cramped cottage with a stranger who delighted in playing diet games with her, she had to admit she had enjoyed herself more than she had in years. He didn’t whine, he didn’t ask for money and he hadn’t once complained that nobody understood him.

  The sooner he left, the better, before she got used to having him around.

  “Going out?” Rafe asked. He replaced the phone in its cradle and looked from her to the window and back.

  “The water’s gone down some. I thought I might, um—go for a beach walk. I mean, as long as I’m here, I want to take advantage of every sunny day. And I want to collect some more shells so that I can take some to everyone at Holly Hills.” What she wanted even more was not to be here when he left. That way she couldn’t embarrass herself by begging him to stay until Stu and Annamarie returned. “In case you’re gone when I get back, goodbye, have a good flight, and maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”

  She was talking too much again. Overexplaining. She would have preferred to leave him with a better last impression, but the most important thing was to get out of range before she did anything stupid. Like begging him not to leave.

  “Beach walking sounds good. First decent day since I got in. Why don’t I join you?”

  Men. She didn’t know whether to cry or throw something. “I thought you were so anxious to leave.”

  “Stu said they’ll be heading back early tomorrow. I might as well stay another couple of days as long as I’m here. Once I get back to the Gulf Coast it might be a while before I can get away again.”